Startups come with apps to the rescue of Odd-Even scheme’s second phase that began today

Delhi government has kick-started the second phase of its odd-even scheme today, which will continue until 30 April. While this may help curb the increasing effects of air pollution, it could make daily commuting a nightmare. Like most spheres of life, mobile apps could come to your rescue to ensure you have a smooth and hassle-free ride. Some taxi aggregator startups are ensuring that no stone is left unturned, by offering discount, free rides and even free petrol. Let’s take a look at the several options for Delhites for a cost-effective and comfortable commute in the next 15 days.

Shuttl

For those, who take public transport and are looking for cost-effective ways to travel rather than taxis, Shuttl could be an alternative. It is a bus aggregator platform that generates an e-ticket for each user along with a reserved seat number. It has teamed up with bus drivers and runs air-conditioned buses that ply on fixed routes. The Gurgaon-based startup that recently received $20 million funding has helped build an improved tech product and in expansion by covering Delhi/NCR region with over 100 routes and more than 500 buses. The startup is expecting an increase in riders by 50 percent in this coming phase. For the second phase, they’ve added over 100 buses, making the new count over 500.

Amit Singh, co-founder Shuttl, said, “The last phase was a great learning opportunity for all of us. It showed us the positive impact of an institution-led change and brought to light how public commute can make a difference. The expectation in second phase is much higher, because after the first phase, the major change we witnessed is people are ready to move to shared commute if they a get a comfortable ride to their work. The interesting part is around 40 percent commuters who joined Shuttl during the first phase stayed back. This has helped us grow at a higher pace. In January, during the first phase of odd-even, Shuttl was running on 50+ routes with 10,000 rides per day and now we are on 100+ routes with almost 20,000 rides per day. We are adding 30 more routes and expecting a 50 percent increase during this phase of odd-even. We are ready to make daily office commute easier for Delhities and provide them a seamless transport solution”

Ola Shuttle
A similar bus-aggregator comes from the popular startup Ola. Ola Shuttle also has more than 500 buses running in Delhi NCR region with a daily ridership of about 15000. It claims to cover more than 120 routes. The air-conditioned ride also offer free Wi-Fi access to users. You can book a ride wherever you are with the hassle-free Ola Money payment option. It also allows real-time tracking of the Shuttle.

“In addition to thousands of Cabs and Autorickshaws on the Ola platform that are used by citizens of Delhi everyday; the Company has enabled multiple shared mobility options like Ola Share, Ola Shuttle and Car Pool. Ola has also rolled out an on-ground campaign to encourage and educate people on the use of Shared Mobility solutions; volunteers from Ola are stationed at key traffic junctions, around metro stations and other popular areas during the odd–even experiment to engage and guide citizens to appropriate options,” Ola said in a media statement.

While those were alternative to buses, what about people who own a car? The motive of Odd-Even is to get lesser vehicles on road and car pooling is a great way to achieve it. You can team up with people and get your vehicles out alternately by car pooling. However, your dear and ones may not be travelling in the same direction as you. Here’s when Odd-Even comes to the rescue. Using this app, you need to key in details like car number, phone number and route, and a list of people travelling in the same direction will popular your screen. This app is available for Android users.

And, if you want to ensure that you are commuting with known brands, then there are options such as Ola Share, Carpool by Meru and Uber Pool. needless to say, you just need to key in the destination and number of seats, and a nearby vehicle heading in the same direction will be routed to your location. Knowing that these are the most used vehicles, you can easily get a option to make your commute easy.

Revv to Work

Now, not many may be comfortable travelling with strangers, and here’s when self-drive car rental service Revv could come to the rescue. In fact, the startup has launched a new product called Revv To Work in Delhi, wherein you can rent a car on a weekly basis – Monday to Thursday at an economical price around Rs. 450 to 500 per day with 250 free kilometers. Drive a Revv car to work every day from Monday to Thursday with no additional charges till 250 kilometers.

Talking about Odd-Even implementation, Anupam Agarwal, Co-founder & CEO, Revv tell us Firstpost, “Odd-even’s positive impact on both traffic and pollution is obvious and significant, but it could be perceived as a drastic step by several car owners. Sustainability will depend upon the quality of implementation. We obviously cannot be ready for all this on Day 1, but sustained efforts during next 6 months can get us there.” Revv is available to download on Android.

Jugnoo

Those who prefer the good ól autos, there’s the Jugoo auto-aggregator for connecting the last mile. And, in order to Delhites to use public transport, Jugnoo is offering free first ride for users who join during the implementation period of odd even policy and 50 percent discount on first 200 rides between 1 pm to 4 pm.

“We completely believe in the merits of this campaign as we witnessed a very positive feedback from our users during the first phase of implementation of this scheme. With a three fold increase in number of users, there was also tremendous improvement in driver efficiency as the ride time got reduced by around 25% due to less congestion on roads,” Samar Singla, CEO and Founder, Jugnoo tells FirstPost.

ORahi

Similar to Odd Even Ride, another car pooling app is ORahi (Android and iOS). However, ORahi is a corporate car pooling app. It is only for those car owners or people with a valid corporate id and also have to undergo a stringent verification process. It is launching a new app to handle carpooling as well as Odd-Even scheme. So, passengers will have pay Rs 3.5 per kilometer, out of which Rs 3 goes to the driver/owner and 5o paise to ORahi. To attract users in the next 15 days, it is offering features such as second ride free for co-passengers, free 1 litre perol for car owners every two rides (max up to 10 litres) and more. In January, the startup raised 3.5 Cr from the Indian Angel Network within less than three years of its existence and in April ORahi bought add-even.com that is built by 13-year old Akshat Mittal who is now being mentored by ORahi founders.

“Carpooling definitely plays a very significant role in reducing carbon emission. When 3 people travel together, they save 2/3 of carbon emission. Orahi have been able to save 550 tons of carbon emission using carpooling,” said Arun Bhati, COO and Founder, Orahi.

Besides, there are other options such as the Delhi government’s Poocho app and Zoomcar, among others.